Umbilical Cord Blood Bank

Umbilical Cord Blood Retrieval vs Embryonic Stem Cell, Research, which is the better choice?

a Nurse told me they could retrieve four times the amount of usable cells from the umbilical cord blood (usually discarded as the after-birth) in comparison to stem cell research. Say what? Why in the world would we go to all the expense and confrontation of continuing Stem Cell Research if this is the case? Anyone have a valid comparison? Moose-your comment is not helpful to the question. Being Condescending does not become you and is not an effective tool when thinking people gather together.

Public Comments

1. The whole "lol fetus" mindset of the Embryonic Stem cells really whips the researchers up into a frenzy.
2. Not being a research physician I have no idea and neither does "a nurse." I'll rely on the actual MD's and PhD's performing the research as opposed to hearsay. Why is this an issue? Did Fixed Noise deem it a talking point? EDIT: I stand by my answer that the decision should be in the hands of research MD's and PhD's. And that Fixed Noise continues to seek mindless wedge issues to divide us on nonsense.
3. ok well i imagine u noe that stem cells are cells that haven't become specialized (liver cells, heart cells, w.e.). however it doesnt just jump from a stem cell to a heart cell. there are stages. the stem cells they get from the umbilical cord, currently can only become blood cells (white blood cells, red blood cells, t-cells, etc.). They are working on a way to reverse the process to make them stem cells that can become anything, but until then, the stem cells from the umbilical cord will only really be useful for leukemia and blood transfusions. We are spending all this money so we can reconstruct organs and nerves.
4. Cord blood stem cells are only multipotent stem cells, known as adult stem cells. They can only become a handful of different things, like marrow (cord blood can be used in place of marrow in a bone marrow transplant, because they are the same type of stem cells as bone marrow). Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, which means they can become lots of different types of stem cells, which leaves them open to use of several different things. Recent research on adult stem cells from cord blood and marrow have expanded their uses, but they still have no where near the possible uses as embryonic stem cells. Beyond that, the fight to continue embryonic stem cell research isnt just because of what more it can do. There are proceedures that are legal and socially acceptable that are producing extra, dead, and unusable embryos. Why should be using those embryos to learn as much as we can. If not embryonic stem cell research, then they should be used for some other type of research. Even if there was never another extra, left over embryo in IVF ever again, embryos are still dieing in this legal and socially acceptable proceedure. I dont understand why its ok when the dead embryos are a result of a poor infertile woman's vain attempts to get preg, but wrong when the same dead embryos can help millions of people live more productive lives? Why continue embryonic stem cell research, you ask?? Because no one has a problem with other procedures and research that result in dead embryos. As long as their are dead embryos to use in research, I will fight for them to be used. I think everything that can be used should be used, and my own body will be donated after death for research, and I have donated my body during life for research. I FULLY support adult stem cell research, but I do not think its handful of advances over 100 years are enough to discount embryonic stem cell research after about 10.